ere's a good chance of the railroad goin' through her
place?" asked Mrs. Robinson. "If it does, she'll git as much as the
farm is worth and more. Adam Ladd 's one of the stockholders, and
everything is a success he takes holt of. They're fightin' it in
Augusty, but I'd back Ladd agin any o' them legislaters if he thought
he was in the right."

"Rebecca'll have some new clothes now," said Delia, "and the land knows
she needs 'em. Seems to me the Sawyer girls are gittin' turrible near!"

"Rebecca won't have any new clothes out o' the prize money," remarked
Mrs. Perkins, "for she sent it away the next day to pay the interest on
that mortgage."

"Poor little girl!" exclaimed Delia Weeks.

"She might as well help along her folks as spend it on foolishness,"
affirmed Mrs. Robinson. "I think she was mighty lucky to git it to pay
the interest with, but she's probably like all the Randalls; it was
easy come, easy go, with them."

"That's more than could be said of the Sawyer stock," retorted Mrs.
Perkins; "seems like they enjoyed savin' more'n anything in the world,
and it's gainin' on Mirandy sence her shock."

"I don't believe it was a shock; it stands to reason she'd never 'a'
got up after it and been so smart as she is now; we had three o' the
worst shocks in our family that there ever was on this river, and I
know every symptom of 'em better'n the doctors." And Mrs. Peter Meserve
shook her head wisely.

"Mirandy 's smart enough," said Mrs. Cobb, "but you notice she stays
right to home, and she's more close-mouthed than ever she was; never
took a mite o' pride in the prize, as I could see, though it pretty
nigh drove Jeremiah out o' his senses. I thought I should 'a' died o'
shame when he cried 'Hooray!' and swung his straw hat when the governor
shook hands with Rebecca. It's lucky he couldn't get fur into the
church and had to stand back by the door, for as it was, he made a
spectacle of himself. My suspicion is"--and here every lady stopped
eating and sat up straight--"that the Sawyer girls have lost money.
They don't know a thing about business 'n' never did, and Mirandy's too
secretive and contrairy to ask advice."

"The most o' what they've got is in gov'ment bonds, I always heard, and
you can't lose money on them. Jane had the timber land left her, an'
Mirandy had the brick house. She probably took it awful hard that
Rebecca's fifty dollars had to be swallowed up in a mortgage, 'stead of
goin' towards school